Yvonne Webb

An ap­pro­pri­ate venue is be­ing sought to host the in­au­gu­ra­tion of Pres­i­dent-elect Jus­tice An­tho­ny Car­mona on March 18. Sources close to Car­mona, who is con­sid­ered a man of the peo­ple, said he want­ed an "all-in­clu­sive af­fair" to be wit­nessed by mem­bers of the pub­lic and not a stiff cer­e­mo­ny to be at­tend­ed on­ly by re­tired pub­lic ser­vants and those in au­thor­i­ty, when he be­came the coun­try's fifth Pres­i­dent.

The T&T Guardian un­der­stands mem­bers of the Fyz­abad com­mu­ni­ty, where he grew up, have hired ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 bus­es to come to Port-of-Spain to wit­ness the ex­pect­ed pomp and cer­e­mo­ny as­so­ci­at­ed with the in­au­gu­ra­tion. Among the venues un­der con­sid­er­a­tion are the Queen's Park Oval, Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um and Queen's Hall.

Of­fi­cial sources said Wood­ford Square, where for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning took his oath of of­fice in 2007, is not among the venues be­ing con­sid­ered be­cause of its strong po­lit­i­cal over­tones and se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns. Se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments, which be­gan on Feb­ru­ary 4 when Car­mona signed the nom­i­na­tion form and con­sent­ed to be the pres­i­den­tial can­di­date, were in­creased yes­ter­day af­ter he was of­fi­cial­ly de­clared the Pres­i­dent-elect.

Re­ports are that the Gov­ern­ment is pur­su­ing an ap­pro­pri­ate place of res­i­dence for Car­mona, his wife Reema and their two chil­dren–Chris­t­ian, 12, and Anu­ra, ten–who now live at Flagstaff Hill, St James.

Pres­i­dent Elect

"He will have to move to a more prac­ti­cal place in terms of se­cu­ri­ty con­sid­er­a­tions. He won't want to in­con­ve­nience his neigh­bours, in terms of park­ing for a se­cu­ri­ty de­tail," the of­fi­cial said, ex­plain­ing that as a mat­ter of pro­to­col the Pres­i­dent-elect will not con­sent to in­ter­views un­til he is sworn in.

"We have this very ter­ri­ble way of dis­card­ing the old and glo­ri­fy­ing the new and he does not want to be part of that process. We have an in­cum­bent Pres­i­dent and we have to use a mea­sure of ci­vil­i­ty when deal­ing with these sit­u­a­tions," the of­fi­cial added. Car­mona will re­ceive his in­stru­ments of ap­point­ment from Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Wade Mark at 11 am on Feb­ru­ary 18.

The of­fi­cial said Car­mona, who is still get­ting over a bout of laryn­gi­tis, would spend the week­end ty­ing up loose ends and rest­ing as he and his fam­i­ly pre­pare for a new lifestyle. The term of Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards, who was first elect­ed in 2003, will end on March 17, a Sun­day.

Car­mona will be sworn in the next day, since such cer­e­monies are not nor­mal­ly held on a Sun­day. For a few hours be­tween the res­ig­na­tion and in­au­gu­ra­tion, the coun­try will be with­out a du­ly-elect­ed Pres­i­dent. How­ev­er, a le­gal of­fi­cial said there would be no prob­lems.

"If there is an emer­gency, I sup­pose there can be a swear­ing-in forth­with, or Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith can con­tin­ue to act un­til the new Pres­i­dent is sworn in," the of­fi­cial added. Pres­i­dent Richards and his wife, Dr Jean Ramjohn-Richards, have gone on va­ca­tion over­seas, leav­ing Hamel-Smith in charge.